Spring Android and Maven (Part 2)
Overview
The Maven Android Plugin lets you build your Android applications with Maven and benefit from dependency management. Google's Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin allows you to develop and build Android applications within the Eclipse IDE. To get Maven dependency management within Eclipse, the Maven Integration for Android Development Tools plugin is required, which integrates m2eclipse, the ADT Plugin, and the Maven Android Plugin. This post will show you how to install this plugin and use it to get Maven-based dependency management working in the Eclipse IDE.
The specific versions of each component used in this post are listed below:
Spring Android and Maven
Introduction
We recently announced the M1 release of Spring Android, and with that release some questions have arisen around how to build an Android application utilizing the Spring Android Rest Template and Spring Android Commons Logging libraries. Google provides several methods for compiling an Android application, including SDK command line tools, and the ADT (Android Development Tools) Plugin for Eclipse. Unfortunately, neither of these methods includes integrated dependency management support.
Overview
As Java developers we have come to appreciate tools such as Maven and Gradle for managing external dependencies. While traditional Java applications run in a JVM, Android applications run on the Dalvik virtual machine. The Dalvik VM executes files in the Dalvik Executable (.dex) format. It runs classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been transformed into the .dex format. A build tool will need to support this process if it is going to be able to compile a compatible Android application with dependencies.
There are basically two options for including external libraries in your Android application. The first is to manually copy the jars into the libs directory within your project and update the classpath within Eclipse or STS (SpringSource Tool Suite). This is the simplest solution, and the one most supported by the ADT plugin. The disadvantage is that you have to manage the dependencies manually. Alternatively, a third party plugin such as the Maven Android Plugin can be utilized to automatically include the dependencies from a Maven repository.
In this post I will walk through the process of using the Android command line tools, Maven, the Maven Android Plugin, and Android Maven artifacts to compile a sample application that utilizes the Spring Android libraries, and deploy it to the Android emulator. After you have configured Maven, it is easy to create a build, deploy it to the emulator, run tests, and package the app for deployment to the Android Market. Before running the sample code, we will first highlight the configuration settings necessary in the pom.xml. The components used in this example are listed below.
Maven Configuration
This section covers the parts of a pom.xml that are required for developing with Spring Android and the Maven Android Plugin.Spring into Mobile Application Development
At SpringOne2gx we announced exciting new initiatives in the areas of social media and mobile application development. A few weeks ago, Craig Walls released Spring Social. Today, Roy Clarkson released Spring Mobile and Spring Android. In this post, I'd like to highlight these projects and share how Spring aims to simplify mobile application development.
Choices in Mobile Application Development
If you attended SpringOne2gx this year, you've seen Greenhouse, an app we built for our community that also serves as a reference and driver for Spring technology. Craig showed you some of the social elements of Greenhouse, such as the ability to connect your account with Twitter and Facebook. There are also a number of mobile elements. Specifically, Greenhouse doubles as a mobile web app, and sports native Greenhouse for iPhone and Android clients.
Like many organizations today, we had to answer the basic question of "what mobile platforms to target?" In the end, we chose to invest in a native experience for iPhone and Android users, while also developing a cross-platform mobile web app. Our decision to go native was driven by the fact the app is consumer-oriented, and a large number of prospective consumers (application developers) own iPhone and Android devices. At the same time, the mobile web app aims to provide a good baseline experience that works cross-platform, something that's possible today with the rise of WebKit and HTML 5.
From our development work, grew Spring Framework contributions: first, a Spring Mobile project that provides extensions to Spring MVC for developing mobile web apps; and second, a Spring Android project that supports the development of native Android clients that communicate with Spring-based back-ends. I'll take you through each of these projects in turn.
Introducing Subversion
When developing web applications on your own, a common challenge is keeping track of your changes. Mature version control systems make it easier to manage development as projects increase in size and complexity. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to set up Subversion on a Windows machine and get started with a simple project.
Subversion, or SVN, is a stable version control system designed for maintaining versions over files. As a very mature project, having started in 2000, Subversion is the generally accepted standard for managing versions of files in software projects. A number of plugins and interfaces are available for Subversion; for example, the Eclipse IDE has near-seamless integration with Subversion through the Subclipse plugin. While a number of newer version control systems, known as distributed version control systems, are better suited for managing a team of distributed developers, Subversion remains the standard for ease of installation and use in single developer environments.
Working with Subversion
To manage our code using our SVN server, we're going to need a client. One of the most popular clients for Windows, which we'll be using today, is TortoiseSVN. Tortoise integrates well with the Windows shell: we'll generally be using it through the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer. Tortoise is fairly transparent, integrating cleanly while providing helpful information all over your project. It also works out of the box with IDEs that provide access to the shell menu, such as PhpED.
Download the latest copy of TortoiseSVN from the project page – I'm using v1.5.0. Install it with all the default options.
Importing our project into the repository
We'll use TortoiseSVN to place a particular folder under version control. Let's create a sample project with a PHP script in it. I'm storing my project in C:\projects\helloworld with an index.php file inside, although it doesn't matter where you store your project or what files are inside it.
Load up a Windows Explorer window and navigate to the folder above your project folder – for example, C:\projects. Right-click on your project folder – e.g. Helloworld – and select TortoiseSVN > Import.
New Setting Up Subversion for Development on Windows
Setting up a Subversion server on Windows
We have a number of options for installing an SVN server under Windows. One of them involves integrating with Apache, which offers some advantages in terms of integration with existing files. However, it requires some additional configuration – and, of course, a working install of Apache. Instead, we're going to use an easy to use server package endorsed by Collabnet,, the company behind Subversion. The VisualSVN Server allows us to quickly install a Subversion server just like any other application under Windows, then manage it via a familiar interface – a snap-in for the MS Management Console (mmc).
Installing the server
Head over to the download page of VisualSVN Server and grab the latest copy; I'm working with 1.5. Run through the install procedure till you see this screen:
